Marc Coma wins 2011 Personal Dakar Rally aboard his 450 KTM

For the third time in six years, Marc Coma has bested Cyril Despres to take the top podium finish in the 2011 Personal Dakar Rally by 15 minutes and 4 seconds. The two riders have now each won three titles over that six-year stretch. Despres finished second, with the third place finisher, Helder Rodrigues, well over an hour and a half behind the pair.

The quad category was won by Alejandro Patronelli, brother of one of the pre-race favorites, Marco Patronelli, aboard a Yamaha machine. Marco took a bad spill between stages and later bowed out due to electrical problems with his equipment.

Among the car entries, Volkswagen Touaregs took all three podium positions, with Nasser Al-Attiyah and Timothy Gottschalk winning, Giniel De Villiers and Dirk Von Zitzewitz taking second, and Carlos Sainz and Lucas Cruz finishing third. Stephane Peterhansel in his BMW X3 could only manage a fourth place finish.

Kamaz continued domination of the truck category with the Vladimir Chagin-led team winning for the seventh time, followed by Firdaus Kabirov’s team and a solid third place finish by another 4326 Kamaz truck piloted by Eduard Nikolaev. To put the final stamp on the domination, fourth place was won by another 4326 Kamaz, driven by a team led by Ilgizar Mardeeev.

Nicholas Kieftsays:

January 19, 2011 12:40 pm

Does anyone else agree what a dreadful cover Versus provided of the Dakar. When it really was the Paris-Dakar, French TV provided great coverage. Times of the programs were all over the place and they only allowed a 30 min slot, when I kid you not, one day seemed to be devoted entirely to fishing! Then with a piece to camera, by an attractive, but obvious refugee from a fashion show, the whole thing became as interesting as a travel program. May be SPEED can have a go next year?

Dennis Msays:

January 19, 2011 8:32 pm

We’re with you Nicholas! The coverage was appallingly bad, what little bit we saw was repetitive and focused strictly on the front runners. There were some clips we saw at least six times!

A lot of talking heads and no coverage whatsoever of the trucks, which in the past provided some of the most compelling action. We did see a few truck shots in the teasers and commercials between between segments, but nothing in the actual show.

We agree, maybe Speed will pick it up next year and show Versus how it can be done.

Glen Bibbysays:

January 20, 2011 7:04 pm

That “Abarth” looks much like an “innocenti” Mini, Italian tailoring on the Austin Seven/Morris Mini.

And on a completley different note, the Feb issue sucks, not because of the insane prices that dealers pay @ auction and whak’em’up 20k, but the silly front cover of the car bible. It seems as it’s going to tear off every time I pick it up, which is a lot. Glen